Michael Gove might never achieve his wish for a nation where all children acquire the "fundamental building blocks" of knowledge to equip them through life. But if his draft national curriculum is any guide we might as a nation get much, much, better at University Challenge.

Announced alongside the decision to keep GCSEs after all and to broaden the way secondary schools are judged, comes a 173-page document, plus appendixes on grammar and punctuation, which lays down the Gove-ian vision of what children in England should be taught.

While this is a deliberately slimmed down document – Gove argues it should form "only part of the whole curriculum, not its entirety", allowing teachers to go off piste occasionally – what it lack in pages it makes up for in suggested facts. Lots of them.

As well as a thorough grounding in the essentials of maths, spelling, grammar and punctuation, from 2014 children will be expected to pinpoint cities and rivers on a globe in geography classes, while history will present, in Gove's words to parliament, "a clear narrative of British progress with a proper emphasis on heroes and heroines from our past". English will involve "the great works of the literary canon".

Gove said: "We are determined to give every child, regardless of background a broad, balanced, education so that by the time their compulsory education is complete they are well-equipped for further study, future employment and adult life."

This back-to-basics approach is at the centre of the education secretary's philosophy, one heavily influenced by systems in places such as Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as the US state of Massachusetts, all mentioned in Gove's address to MPs.

Both these men argue that before students can begin analysis or criticism in a given subject they must first have a good enough store of the facts, ones committed deeply to memory rather than culled on demand from reference books or the internet.

The education secretary argues that such an approach is vital for social progression, saying disadvantaged pupils who might not absorb such knowledge at home must be provided with it by teachers.

In a speech on Tuesday night outlining his ideas Gove said that without a curriculum like this "students from poorer homes will continue to perform less well in the exercise of every basic skill that one needs to be employed in the modern world". He added: "The accumulation of cultural capital – the acquisition of knowledge – is the key to social mobility."

It is an approach very much favoured by educational conservatives at present.

The Department for Education was soon circulating an approving quote from the historian and author Simon Sebag Montefiore, who praised a "proper emphasis on the heroes and heroines who bring history to life".

Teaching unions were more circumspect, though the NASUWT bemoaned the freedom granted to maintained schools to deviate further from a set curriculum, as academies, free schools and private schools can do so already. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland follow their own versions.

Beyond the fact-heavy tone there were few obvious significant changes. The same core subjects remain – English, maths, science, art, citizenship, computing (a name change from ICT), design and technology, geography, history, languages, music and PE – though with a foreign language made part of the compulsory study in late primary school for the first time.

Labour officials pointed out that for all the talk of the literary greats only one, Shakespeare, was actually named, and there was lack of a specific mention of the NHS in post-war British history.

Regarding history, on the fringes of the debate campaigners hailed the return of Mary Seacole, the pioneering black British figure who tended soldiers in the Crimean war, and who was due to be removed from the curriculum. Seacole's place in the curriculum had been "not just cemented, but enhanced", Gove told MPs.

Gove agreed, telling the Commons the measure had led to excessive focus on the crucial C/D borderline, taking attention from students either struggling or thriving.

The ranking measure is to be abolished, said Gove. Instead there would be a simple percentage for pupils reaching the decreed level in English and maths, and a more complex points score based on eight GCSEs. To the delight of critics of the narrow scope of the EBC this could include up to three "other" GCSEs, taking in the likes of art and some vocational subjects.

This was largely welcomed by teaching unions and Maggie Atkinson, the Children's Commissioner for England, who said it would encourage a broader approach to learning.